Category: For Real?

  • Cat interpreter

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, March 20, 2016 Wills, our willful orange tabby who just turned ten, has an interspecies interpreter at home. That would be me. I am the language specialist who delivers in English what this feline is “thinking” — or whatever crazy, mixed-up thing it is they do with their 30 grams of gray…

  • Holiday meditation: the gumdrop chakra

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, November 29, 2015 (First published in 2012; back by request.) Lie down on the floor —arms and legs out, like a gingerbread man. Imagine you have two gumdrop eyes and a big, messy, icing mouth, the kind gingerbread “men” have. Now tell yourself you are neither man nor woman, you are a spice…

  • Princess-of-the-world cat meditation

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, August 9, 2015 Sit upright on one of those squares you like. The vintage Navajo rug, or the laptop case, or one of the placemats they hate you sitting on, smack in the middle of the dining room table. There is no one at home now, no one to try to make…

  • Testing the grape

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, March 22, 2015 MCW: [starts to cross herself then, forgetting how, stops] Bless me, father. It’s been oh, I don’t know, a couple of years, maybe, since my last confession. Father: That sounds a bit casual, my child. Not in the least bit urgent. At any rate, here you are. You’re back,…

  • Rosebud

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, February 15, 2015 Dear Saint Valentine, You’ve got to be taking a nap at this point, or its celestial equivalent. Evanescing briefly into a light-infused fog or racing around the firmament on fleet wings of lace. Tripping, tumbleweed-like, through fields of gold. Maybe it’s a purple velvet pillow you rest your halo’ed…

  • Dear whatever your name is,

    Telluride Daily Planet, Sunday, September 14, 2014 We’ve had 8.5 human years together now; and though I do feel I’ve gotten to know you better, I still find you unpredictable and irritating. Therefore, I’d like to suggest we go over my rules. Again. That way, you won’t get all wound up about my alleged misbehavior and…